


The Ineluctable Tendencies of Tumbling Toast

by Aloysia_Virgata



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s03e04 Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 20:40:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4680653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aloysia_Virgata/pseuds/Aloysia_Virgata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder and Scully discuss Bruckman's predictions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ineluctable Tendencies of Tumbling Toast

**Author's Note:**

> This fic evolved after a discussion with xfiles-behind-the-scenes regarding a Five Times style fic about some of the objects in the basement office. It never quite happened, but I did discover a reference to this article on the bulletin board: http://iopscience.iop.org/0143-0807/16/4/005

***

“I got each flavor of the high-protein kind,” Scully says, gesturing at the cans stacked on her coffee table. “I don’t know what he likes yet.”

“Other than cadavers?”

“He’s an obligate carnivore,” she huffs. “He was trying to survive.”

Queequeg, _née_ Sprinkles, is curled up on Scully’s lap with an expression that Mulder finds smug. He hopes the thing has had its teeth brushed since dining on the last sap who owned it. His lip curls into what he thinks Scully will interpret as a smile.

“Well, you’ve got your own little corpse-loving redhead now. Looks like I’m going to have to teach the fish to unravel government conspiracies to keep things balanced.” He rolls a tennis ball with his foot and ponders the complexities this dog will add to his life. He does not wish to share Scully’s keen focus with a lesser mammal.

“Chantilly Lace,” Scully muses. “Can you imagine trying to follow the thread of one decision like that?”

He often has. If his parents had stayed home that night, if he’d broken protocol for Wohlenberg. If Bugs Bunny had taken that left at Albuquerque.

“Tuesday’s usually my poker night,” he says. “I wax existential on alternating Thursdays.”

“The thing is,” she continues, scratching behind the dog’s ears, “is that there’s no way to treat it like a closed system. Life isn’t strictly dichotomous. There’s no algorithm that could predict every possible outcome.”

He loves this. He loves her devout skepticism in all its flawed and stubborn glory. “Bruckman really got to you, didn’t he?”

“Got to me? I’d say he raised a lot of questions that I’d like answers to. That doesn’t mean I think he’s actually got a copy of the Grim Reaper’s day planner.” But she looks uncomfortable; there’s something she isn’t telling him.

“So it’s all just chance, then? Your scientific explanation is that he was a really good guesser?”

Scully stretches. Her stockinged feet look small and vulnerable without their spiked armor, and Mulder fights a sudden urge to grab her toe and recite “This Little Piggy.” He’d be lucky to get off with a bullet to the shoulder

“You toss a coin enough times, you can think you see a pattern. It’s why kids wear their pajamas backwards on winter nights and sports fans have lucky boxer shorts.”

“You been creepin’ in my laundry, Scully?”

She smiles. “Never without my lucky hazmat suit.”

Mulder peels back the lid on a can of Tender Steak Niblets. “Here, Queequeg,” he sings with false cheer. The dog cocks his obnoxious little head, sniffing the air, looking like a fox that was put into the dryer. He trots over to Mulder, tail wagging expectantly.

“Traitor,” Scully growls, but her eyes are smiling.

“Good boy. Who’s a good dog? Who loves Mulder?” He sets the can on a coaster and presents it to Queequeg, who jumps on the coffee table and begins devouring the food.

“Oh, sure, you be the fun uncle. I’m going to have to break him of these bad habits, you know.”

“Aw, let the kid unwind. He’s had a rough week. But to our discussion, Scully. You’re Catholic; surely you believe in a measure of foreknowledge somewhere in the cosmos.”

Scully cocks her head in the way that alerts him to profound cerebral events taking place. “I read an interesting article recently,” she begins, which is the Scully equivalent of _Once upon a time._ “There was a study done to observe the rate at which buttered toast falls butter-side down.”

The dog is making repellant slurping sounds. “And?”

“And, even accounting for the density of the butter and numerous other factors including non-zero horizontal velocity, the researchers found that the toast fell butter-side down notably more than fifty percent of the time. They described it as _prima facie_ evidence of Murphy’s Law.”

Mulder grins. He plans to print this paper and cite it regularly. Perhaps have it painted on their wall. ”Aha! So just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me.” He opens a can of Liver ‘n’ Cheddar Morsels, whistling softly.

“Stop feeding him, he’s going to get sick. I’m saying that…hmm.” Scully pokes her tongue past her lip, thinking. No unmeasured word escapes her. “Perhaps ‘there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”

“ _I’m_ Horatio? Surely not.”

She laughs. “Fair point. Look, Mulder, I don’t know what to say. I don’t believe we can predict the future. But I think that’s in part because there are so many things affecting the possible outcomes, and some of those are factors we can’t yet conceive of.” She stifles a yawn.

Queequeg, on the table, abandons the can of food to leap onto the couch. He exhales a meaty cloud into Mulder’s face.

“Oh, ugh, Scully, don’t get any more of the liver kind.” He pushes the animal back to his mistress, who cradles him protectively.

“You have no one to blame but yourself,” she says primly.

“Pretty sure that’s going on my tombstone.”

Scully averts her eyes to inspect a tangle in Queequeg’s tail. “Which, actually…given what Bruckman implied about your demise, I would imagine you wouldn’t be too keen on him having a spotless track record.”

Mulder coughs. “Well, as you say, it was only implied. I like to think I’ve left the door open for loads of unhappy accidents. Could be a flukeman, maybe. He might have had a brother.”

She chuckles. “I like your optimism.”

“Anyway,” Mulder says. “What’d he tell you? I know you asked, Dr. Scully.”

Something flashes in her eyes, just for a fraction of a second. “He wouldn’t tell me.”

Mulder scoffs. “Oh, come on, spill it.”

She gets to her feet, patting the couch for the leash. “I mean it, he really didn’t. He said I don’t die.” She finds it and the dog begins to bark, bouncing in frenzied circles. Scully, exasperated, lunges at him. “Dammit, Queequeg!”

Sympathetic, Mulder picks the dog up and tucks it under his arm where it vibrates with anticipation. “You’re immortal?” he asks.

She clips the leash to the collar. “Lucky me.”

They walk outside, her pace quick to match his loping stride. Mulder gazes down at her in the halo of a streetlamp, half-hoping Bruckman is right and he’ll not have to contemplate a world without her


End file.
